On September 24, 1783, four days after the signing of the Treaty of Paris formally
ended the war, Congress directed General Washington to discharge "such
parts of the Federal Army now in Service as he shall deem proper and expedient."
For the time being Washington retained the force facing the British at New York,
discharging the rest of the Continentals. After the British quit New York, he
kept only one infantry regiment and a battalion of artillery, 600 men in all,
to guard the military supplies at West Point and other posts.

The period leading up to this demobilization was a stormy one for the Congress.
During the winter of 1782 the Army had grown impatient, and rumors that it would
take matters into its own hands gained credence when several anonymous addresses
were circulated among the officers at Newburgh urging them not to fight if the
war continued or not to lay down their arms if peace were declared and their
pay accounts left unsettled. In an emotional speech to his old comrades, Washington
disarmed this threat. He promised to intercede for them, and in the end, Congress
did give in to the officers' demands, agreeing to award the men their back pay
and to grant the officers full pay for five years in lieu of half pay for life.
Demobilization then proceeded peacefully, but it was against the background
of these demands and threats that Congress wrestled with a major postwar problem,
the size and character of the peacetime military establishment. In the way of
most governments, Congress turned the problem over to a committee, this one
under Alexander Hamilton, to study the facts and make recommendations for a
military establishment.

The Question of a Peacetime Army

Congress subscribed to the prevailing view that the first line of defense should
be a "well-regulated and disciplined militia sufficiently armed and accoutered."
Its reluctance to create a standing army was understandable; a permanent army
would be a heavy expense, and it would complicate the struggle between those
who wanted a strong national government and those who preferred the existing
loose federation of states. Further, the recent threats of the

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Continental officers strengthened the popular fear that a standing army might
be used to coerce the states or become an instrument of despotism.

General Washington, to whom Hamilton's committee turned first for advice, echoed
the prevailing view. He pointed out that a large standing army in time of peace
had always been considered "dangerous to the liberties of a country"
and that the nation was "too poor to maintain a standing army adequate
to our defense." The question might also be considered, he continued, whether
any surplus funds that became available should not better be applied to "building
and equipping a Navy without which, in case of War we could neither protect
our Commerce, nor yield that assistance to each other which, on such an extent
of seacoast, our mutual safety would require." He believed that America
should rely ultimately on an improved version of the historic citizens' militia,
a force enrolling all males between 18 and 50 liable for service to the nation
in emergencies. He also recommended a volunteer militia, recruited in units,
periodically trained, and subject to United States rather than state control.
At the same time Washington did suggest the creation of a small Regular Army
"to awe the Indians, protect our Trade, prevent the encroachment of our
Neighbors of Canada and the Floridas, and guard us at least from surprises;
also for security of our magazines." He recommended a force of four regiments
of infantry and one of artillery, totaling 2,630 officers and men.

Hamilton's committee also listened to suggestions made by General von Steuben,
Major General Louis le Bèque Du Portail, Chief Engineer of the Army,
and Benjamin Lincoln, Secretary at War. On June 18, 1783, it submitted a plan
to Congress similar to Washington's, but with a more ambitious militia program.
Congress, however, rejected the proposal. Sectional rivalries, constitutional
questions, and, above all, economic objections were too strong to be overcome.

The committee thereupon revised its plan, recommending an even larger army
that it hoped to provide at less expense by decreasing the pay of the regimental
staff officers and subalterns. Washington when asked admitted that detached
service along the frontiers and coasts would probably require more men thanhe had proposed, but he disagreed that a larger establishment could be provided
more economically than the one he had recommended. A considerable number of
the delegates to Congress had similar misgivings, and when the committee presented
its revised report on October 23, Congress refused to accept it. During the
winter of 1783 the matter rested. Under the Articles of Confederation an affirmative
vote of the representatives of nine states was required for the exercise of
certain important powers, including military matters,

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and on few occasions during this winter were enough states represented for
Congress to renew the debate.

In the spring of 1784 the question of a permanent peacetime army became involved
in the politics of state claims to western lands. The majority of men in the
remaining infantry regiment and artillery battalion were from Massachusetts
and New Hampshire, and those states wanted to be rid of the financial burden
of providing the extra pay that they had promised the men on enlistment. Congress
refused to assume the responsibility unless the New England states would vote
ford a permanent military establishment. The New England representatives, led
by Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, insisted that Congress had no authority
to maintain a standing army, but at the same time they wanted the existing troops
to occupy the western forts, situated in land claimed by the New England states.
New York vigorously contested the New England claims to western lands, particularly
in the region around Oswego and Niagara, and refused to vote for any permanent
military establishment unless Congress gave it permission to garrison the western
forts with its own forces.

The posts that had been the object of concern and discussion dominated the
Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River. (Map I3) Located on American

Map 13

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territory south of the boundary established by the peace treaty of 1783, the
posts were in the hands of British troops when the war ended, but by the terms
of the treaty they were to be turned over to the United States as speedily as
possible. Congress agreed that a force should be retained to occupy the posts
as soon as the British left. The problem was how and by whom the troops were
to be raised. A decision was all the more urgent because the government was
in the midst of negotiating a treaty with the Indians of the Northwest, and,
as Washington had suggested, a sizable force "to awe the Indians"
would facilitate the negotiations. But the deadlock between the New England
states and New York continued until early June 1784.

Finally, on the last two days of the session, Congress rushed through a compromise.
It ordered the existing infantry regiment and battalion of artillery disbanded,
except for 80 artillerymen retained to guard military stores at West Point and
Fort Pitt. It tied this discharge to a measure providing for the immediate recruitment
of a new force of 700 men, a regiment of eight infantry and two artillery companies,
which was to become the nucleus of a new Regular Army. By not making requisitions
on the states for troops, but merely recommending that the states provide them
from their militia, Congress got rid of most of the New England opposition on
this score; by not assigning a quota for Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Congress
satisfied the objections of most of the other states.

Four states were called upon to furnish troops: 260 men from Pennsylvania,
165 from Connecticut, 165 from New York, and 110 from New Jersey. Lt. Col. Josiah
Harmar of Pennsylvania was appointed commanding officer. By the end of September
1784 only New Jersey and Pennsylvania had filled their quotas by enlisting volunteers
from their militia.

Congress had meanwhile learned that there was little immediate prospect that
the British would evacuate the frontier posts. Canadian fur traders and the
settlers in Upper Canada had objected so violently to this provision of the
peace treaty that the British Government secretly directed the Governor-General
of Canada not to evacuate the posts without further orders. The failure of the
United States to comply with a stipulation in the treaty regarding the recovery
of debts owed to loyalists provided the British with an excuse to postpone the
evacuation of the posts for twelve more years. So the New Jersey contingent
of Colonel Harmar's force was sent to Fort Stanwix, in upstate New York, to
assist in persuading the Iroquois to part with their lands, while the remainder
of the force moved to Fort MacIntosh, thirty miles down the Ohio River from
Fort Pitt, where similar negotiations were carried on with the Indians of the
upper Ohio.

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Toward a More Perfect Union

Postwar problems revealed a number of serious defects in the Articles of Confederation.
The federal government lacked a separate executive branch and a judiciary, and
although Congress exercised a certain amount of executive as well as legislative
power, it lacked the power to tax. To some of the delegates the conflicts and
dissension between the states over the western lands seemed to carry the seeds
of civil war. Rioting and disturbances in Massachusetts throughout the fall
and winter of 1786 strengthened the pessimism of those who feared the collapse
of the new nation. A severe commercial depression following on the heels of
an immediate postwar boom was causing particular distress among the back-country
farmers. Angry mobs gathered in the Massachusetts hills, broke up the meetings
of the courts, harried lawyers and magistrates out of the villages, and began
to threaten the government arsenal in Springfield.

On October 20, 1786, Congress responded to the threat by calling on several
states to raise a 1,340-man force to serve for three years. This time the New
England states did not object to Congressional action, but before any of the
soldiers voted by Congress could reach the scene, local militiamen repulsed
an attack on the Springfield Arsenal led by Daniel Shays in late January 1787,
and a few days later a large reinforcement from the eastern part of the state
arrived at Springfield and put an end to the disorders. Recruiting for the force
authorized by Congress continued until the following April. By then about 550
men had been enlisted and the question of expense was becoming bothersome. Congress
therefore directed the states to stop recruiting and to discharge the troops
already raised, except those in two artillery companies retained to guard West
Point and the Springfield Arsenal. Shays' Rebellion was thus responsible for
the first augmentation of the federal Army. More important, it helped persuade
Americans that a stronger government was needed.

Rising concern over the ineffectiveness of the federal government, particularly
in matters of finance and commercial regulation, finally led to the convening
of a Constitutional Convention in the spring of 1787. To strengthen the military
powers of the government was one of the principal tasks of the convention, a
task no less important than establishing its financial and commercial authority.
The general problem facing the convention, that of power and the control of
power, came into sharp focus in the debates on military matters, since the widespread
suspicion of a strong central government and the equally widespread fear of
a standing army were merged in the issue of the government's military powers.
Those who mistrusted a powerful government argued against a broad grant of authority
not only in the fields of taxation and

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commercial regulation, but, and with especial force, in military matters as
well. Even those, like Hamilton, who wanted to give the central government wide
latitude in handling both purse and sword were also somewhat wary of standing
armies. They too were concerned over the possible usurpation of political power
by a military force or its use by officeholders as an instrument for perpetuating
their personal power. The Hamiltonians nevertheless were willing. to have the
country run the risk of being less free in order to be more safe. In the final
compromise the problem of the military powers of the central government was
resolved through the system of checks and balances built into the new Constitution.

The Constitution clothed the central government with adequate authority to
raise and maintain an army without calling upon the states. By giving Congress
power to levy taxes, the Constitution provided the central government with the
necessary financial means; by creating a separate executive branch, the Constitution
made it possible for the daily business of the government to be conducted without
constant reference to the states. The Constitution gave the power to declare
war, raise armies, and provide for a navy exclusively to Congress. It also empowered
Congress to call forth the militia "to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress
Insurrections and repel Invasions" But authority over the militia was a
shared power. Congress could provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining
the militia and governing "such Part of them as may be employed in the
Service of the United States," but the Constitution specifically reserved
to the states the authority to appoint militia officers and to train the militia
"according to the discipline prescribed by Congress."

The new Constitution introduced an important innovation by assigning all executive
power to the President. The Secretary of War, therefore, became directly responsible
to the President and not to Congress. The Constitution specifically provided
that the President should be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. As such,
his powers were exclusive, limited only "by their nature and by the principles
of our institutions." The President had the right to assume personal command
of forces in the field, but he could also delegate that right. As Commander
in Chief he was responsible for the employment and disposition of the armed
forces in time of peace and for the general direction of military and naval
operations in war.

Washington became the first President under the new Constitution in April 1789,
and on August 7 Congress created the Department of War. There was no change,
however, in either the policy or the personnel of the department. General Knox,
who had succeeded Washington as commander of the Army

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and had been handling military affairs under the old form of government, remained
in charge. Since there was no navy, a separate department was unnecessary, and
at first the War Department included naval affairs under its jurisdiction. Harmar,
who had been given the rank of brigadier general during the Confederation period,
was confirmed in his appointment, as were his officers, and the existing miniscule
Army was taken over intact by the new government. In August 1789 this force
amounted to about 800 officers and men. All the troops, except the two artillery
companies retained after Shays' Rebellion, were stationed along the Ohio River
in a series of forts built after 1785.

So small an Army required no extensive field organization to supply its needs.
In keeping with the accepted military theory that the Quartermaster was a staff
officer necessary only in time of war, the Confederation Congress had included
the Quartermaster General and his assistants among the others discharged in
1783 and placed the military supply system under civilian control. It had made
the civilian Secretary responsible for the transport, safekeeping, and distribution
of military supplies and the Board of Treasury responsible for procuring and
purchasing all military stores, including food and clothing. Except during a
brief period in which the Secretary of War was allowed to execute contracts
for Army clothing and subsistence, the new federal government retained the Confederation
system, adding in 1792 a civilian Office of the Quartermaster General to transport
supplies to the frontier posts during the Indian expeditions. In 1794 Congress
established the Office of the Purveyor of Public Supplies in the Treasury and
the Office of Superintendent of Military Stores in the War Department to continue
the same broad supply functions established in the Confederation period. This
organization ofmilitary supply remained in effect with only slight modification
until 1812.

The contract system used by the Purveyor of Public Supplies for the procurement
of food and equipment operated much as it did in colonial times. Contracts were
awarded to the lowest bidder who agreed to deliver and issue authorized subsistence
at a fixed price to troops at a given post. The contractor was obliged to have
on hand sufficient rations to feed the troops at all times, providing subsistence
for at least six months in advance at the more distant posts. The procurement,
storage, and distribution of all other supplies for the Army were centralized
in Philadelphia where the Purveyor contracted for all clothing, camp utensils,
military stores, medicines, and hospital stores, and the Superintendent of Military
Stores collected and issued them when needed by the troops. The contract system
was supposed to be more economical and

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efficient than direct purchase, but its weaknesses were soon apparent. The
quality of the supplies and the promptness of their delivery were dictated by
the contractor's profit interest.

The method of arms procurement was a variation of the contract purchase system.
Convinced that the development of a domestic arms industry was essential to
independence, Hamilton had urged as early as 1783 "the public manufacture
of arms, powder, etc." A decade later Secretary Knox reported to Congress
that although arms could be purchased more cheaply in Europe the bargain price
was of little significance "compared with the solid advantages which would
result from extending and perfecting the means upon which our safety may ultimately
depend." Congress responded by expanding the number of U.S. arsenals and
magazines for the stockpiling of weapons and by establishing national armories
for the manufacture of weapons. The firstnational armory was established
at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1794, and a second the same year at Harpers
Ferry, Virginia. Despite these developments the government still purchased most
of its armament abroad, and many years would pass before domestic industry could
supply the government's needs.

The Militia

Time and again Washington pointed out that the only alternative to a large
standing army was an effective militia, yet his efforts and those of Knox and
Hamilton to make the militia more effective by applying federal regulation failed.
Congress passed the basic militia law in May 1792. It called for the enrollment
of "every able-bodied white male citizen" between 18 and 45 and the
organization of the militia into divisions, brigades, regiments, battalions,
and companies by the individual states, each militiamen providing his own "arms,
munitions, and other accouterments." The law that survived the legislative
process bore little resemblance to the one proposed by Washington and Knox.
It left compliance with its provisions up to the states and in the end did little
more than give federal recognition to the colonial militia organization that
had plagued Washington during the Revolution. Despite these limitations, the
act did preserve the idea of a citizen soldiery, a concept of profound importance
to the future of the country, and it also provided for the creation of special
volunteer units to supplement the obligatory mass system. The volunteers, organized
into companies, met regularly for military training under elected officers.
With antecedents in the organized military associations of the colonial era,
this volunteer force later became the National Guard.

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Training and discipline were the key to an effective militia, but after the
act of 1792 the militia was to be neither disciplined nor well trained. When
permitted to fight in less standardized fashion—either from behind fortifications
or as irregulars—militiamen could give a good account of themselves, but only
highly trained troops could be expected to employ successfully the complicated,
formal linear tactics of the day. Strictly interpreting the constitutional provision
that reserved to the states the authority to train the militia, Congress left
the extent and thoroughness of training completely to the states and merely
prescribed General von Steuben's system of discipline and field exercises as
the rules to be followed.

The limitations placed on the length of tours of duty and the circumstances
for which it might be called into federal service further impaired the usefulness
of the militia. No militiamen could be compelled to serve more than three months
in any one year, nor could the President order the militia to duty outside the
United States. The effect of these limitations would be readily apparent during
the War of 1812.

The President first exercised his authority to employ militia for suppressing
insurrection and executing the laws of Congress in 1794 when Washington sent
a large force of militia under Maj. Gen. Henry Lee into western Pennsylvania
during the Whiskey Rebellion. Lee encountered no resistance. As a show of force,
the demonstration was impressive; as an indication of the military value of
the militia in an emergency, it was inconclusive.

Military Realities in the Federalist Period

The military policies of the new nation evolved realistically in response to
foreign and domestic developments. First, there was little actual military threat
to the United States from a foreign nation. Britain had no desire or design
to reconquer its lost colonies, although both Britain and Spain sought to curb
the United States from expanding beyond the borders established by the treaty
of 1783. The military alliance that bound the United States to England's arch
rival, France, was a potential source of danger, but England and France were
at peace until 1793. Second, the jealousy of the individual states toward one
another and toward the federal government made it difficult to establish a federal
Army at all and defeated efforts to institute federal regulation of the militia
beyond the minimum permitted by the Constitution. Third, the federal government,
plagued by financial problems, had to pare expenditures to the bone. Fourth,
there was extreme reluctance on the part of Americans to serve in the Army,
either as Regulars or as volunteers, for

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more than a brief period. At no time could the government recruit enough men
to bring the Regular Army up to authorized strength. In view of these drawbacks,
a larger military establishment was not feasible, even though a well-trained
militia to take its place was lacking.

The Indian Expeditions

Free of the threat of foreign invasion, the young republic nevertheless faced
a serious security problem in the West where the new settlers demanded protection
against the Indians as well as an equitable administration of the vast new territories
won in the peace of 1783. The Indian problem was an old one. Under the relentless
pressure of the pioneers and because of the grants made to Continental soldiers,
the frontier was rapidly receding. The Confederation Congress had tried to cope
with the situation by concluding a series of treaties with the various Indian
groups, but the treaties failed to keep pace with the expansion of the frontier
boundaries, and the Indians, supported by British arms and the British presence
in the Northwest, ferociously resisted the incursions of the settlers. In the
years of the Confederation, they killed or captured over 1,500 settlers in the
Kentucky Territory alone.

The Indians fought the settlers all along the frontier, but several factors
militated against federal intervention in the Southwest during the first years
of Washington's administration. In 1790 the United States concluded a treaty
with the Creeks, the most powerful of the Southwest tribes, a treaty that the
Spanish in Louisiana, eager to maintain their profitable trade with the Indians,
would be likely to support. Georgia and South Carolina introduced a further
argument against intervention when they objected to the presence of federal
forces within their borders.

The situation was entirely different in the Northwest. There federal troops
had been chiefly occupied in driving squatters out of the public domain and
protecting the Indian's treaty rights, a type of duty that neither endeared
them to the settlers nor trained them in the art of war. Since the enactment
of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, settlers had been pouring into the Ohiocountry and were demanding federal protection. Their demands carried a veiled
threat: ignore their plight and they would turn to Spain and England for succor.
The federal union could be destroyed in its infancy.

Tardily and somewhat inadequately, the new government groped for a response
to the West's challenge. In his first annual message to Congress President Washington
called for the defense of the frontier against the Indians, and Congress responded
by raising the authorized strength of Regulars to

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1,283. Aware that this force was inadequate to protect the entire frontier,
Secretary Knox planned to call on the militia to join the Regulars in an offensive
to chastise the Miami Indian group as a show of force. In June 1790 he ordered
General Harmar, in consultation with Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest
Territory, to lead the expedition. Under an authorization given him the preceding
fall, St. Clair called on Pennsylvania and Kentucky to send 1,500 militiamen
to Harmar at Fort Washington (now Cincinnati). (See Map 13.)

The untrained and undisciplined militia was a weak reed on which to lean in
a sustained campaign against the Indians, but Knox knew the militia's strengths
as well as its weaknesses. Depending on the fast-striking, mounted militiamen
to support the Regulars, Knox wanted Harmar to conduct a "rapid and decisive"
maneuver, taking advantage of the element of surprise, to find and destroy the
Indian forces and their food supplies. But the two phased operation concocted
by Harmar and St. Clair bore little resemblance to Knox's proposed tactics.
Harmar planned a long march northward from Fort Washington to the Miami villages
concentrated at the headwaters of the Wabash River. A second column under Maj.
John Hamtramck would ascend the Wabash from Fort Vincennes, Indiana, destroying
villages along the way and finally joining with Harmar's column after a 150-mile
march.

The expedition failed. Hamtramck left Vincennes with 330 Regulars and Virginia
militia on September 30, but after an 11-day march during which a few Indian
villages were burned, the militia refused to advance farther. Harmar also set
out on September 30. After struggling through the wilderness for more than two
weeks with a force of 1,453 men, including 320 Regulars, he reached the neighborhood
of the principal Indian village near what is now Fort Wayne, Indiana. Instead
of pushing on with his entire strength, Harmar on three successive occasions
sent forward unsupported detachments of about 200 to 500 militiamen plus 50
or 60 Regulars. The undisciplined militia could not be restrained from scattering
in search of Indians and plunder, and, after two of the detachments suffered
heavily in brushes with the Indians, Harmar took the rest of his army back to
Fort Washington. His conduct was severely criticized, but a court of inquiry,
noting the untrained troops with which Harmar had been provided and the lateness
of the season, exonerated him.

Secretary Knox's injunctions for a "rapid and decisive" maneuver
were again ignored when the government decided to send another expedition against
the Northwest Indians in 1791. Congress raised the size of the invasion force,
adding a second infantry regiment to the Regular Army and authorizing

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the President to raise a corps of 2,000 men for a term of six months, either
by calling for militia or by enlisting volunteers into the service of the United
States. The President commissioned Governor St. Clair a major general and placed
him in command of the expedition. So slowly did recruiting and the procuring
of supplies proceed that St. Clair was unable to set out before September 17,
and only by calling on the neighboring states for militia was he able to bring
his force up to strength. When St. Clair's force finally marched out of Fort
Washington, it consisted of about 600 Regulars, almost all the actual infantry
strength of the U.S. Army, in addition to about 800 enlisted "levies"
and 600 militiamen.

By November 3 St. Clair had advanced about 100 miles northward from Cincinnati,
and most of his force, now numbering about 1,400 effectives, encamped for the
night near the headwaters of the Wabash. Neglecting the principle of security,
St. Clair had not sent out scouts, and just before dawn a horde of about 1,000
Indians fell upon the unsuspecting troops. Untrained, low in morale as a result
of inadequate supplies, and led by a general who was suffering from rheumatism,
asthma, and "colic," the army was thrown into confusion by the sudden
assault. St. Clair and less than half his force survived unscathed were killed
and 263 wounded.

The United States was alarmed and outraged over St. Clair's defeat. Some urged
that the government abandon the Indian wars and accept the British proposal
for an Indian buffer state in the Northwest, but Washington well understood
the strategic implications of such a scheme and decided instead to mount a third
expedition. He appointed Anthony Wayne, the dashing commander of the Pennsylvania
Line during the Revolution, a major general to succeed St. Clair, and Congress
doubled the authorized strength of the Army by providing for three additional
regiments, two of which were to be infantry and the other a composite regiment
of infantry and light dragoons. It tried to avoid the bad effects of short-term
enlistment by adding the new regiments to the Regular Army as a temporary augmentation
to be "discharged as soon as the United States shall be at peace with the
Indian tribes." Congress also agreed to Secretary of War Knox's proposed
reorganization of the Army into a "Legion," a term widely used during
the eighteenth century and which had come to mean a composite organization of
all combat arms under one command. Instead of regiments, the Army was composed
of four "sublegions," each commanded by a brigadier general and consisting
of two infantry battalions, one battalion of riflemen, one troop of dragoons
(cavalrymen trained to fight either mounted or dismounted), and one company
of artillery.

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Egotistical, blustery, and cordially disliked by many of his contemporaries,
General Wayne nevertheless displayed little of his celebrated "madness"
during the expedition. His operation was skillfully planned. Correcting previous
mistakes, he insisted on rigid discipline and strict training, and conscious
of the welfare of his men, he saw to it that supplies were adequate and equipment
satisfactory. These military virtues finally won for the United States its elusive
victory.

In the spring of 1793 General Wayne took the Legion down the river to Cincinnati
where he tried to persuade the Indians to submit peacefully. When negotiations
broke down, the Legion followed the route that Harmar and St. Clair had taken.
Wayne was in even poorer health than St. Clair, but more determined. Like St.
Clair he moved slowly and methodically, building a series of forts and blockhouses
along his line of march. Despite his efforts to improve morale, he found desertion
as serious a problem as had his predecessors.

Reinforced by mounted militia in July 1794, Wayne led about 3,000 men to within
a few miles of Fort Miami, a post recently established by the British on the
site of what is now Toledo. There, on August 20, 1794, almost within sight of
the British guns, the Indians attacked. The Americans held their ground and
then with a furious bayonet charge drove the enemy out of the cover of fallen
trees that gave the Battle of Fallen Timbers its name. In the open prairie the
Indians were at the mercy of Wayne's mounted volunteers, and in less than an
hour the rout was complete.

Ignoring the protest of the British commander at Fort Miami, Wayne remained
for several days, burning the Indian villages and destroying crops before leading
the Legion back to Cincinnati. The western tribes, their resistance broken,
finally agreed on August 3,1795, in the Treaty of Greenville to make peace and
cede their lands in Ohio to the United States. Their submission had been hastened
by news that England was about to evacuate the frontier posts.

In the years following the Battle of Fallen Timbers settlers pushed rapidly
into Ohio and beyond into lands still claimed by the Indians. To resist these
encroachments, Tecumseh, chief of the Shawnees, and his brother, the Prophet,
organized a tribal confederacy aimed at keeping the settlers out. Urged on by
the settlers, Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory decided
in the summer of 1811 to strike at the Indians before they could descend on
the settlements. Secretary of War William Eustis approved Harrison's scheme
and placed 300 Regulars under Harrison's command in addition to his approximately
650 militia, including mounted riflemen. Moving north from Vincennes at the
end of September, Harrison built a fort on the edge

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BATTLE OF FALLEN TIMBERS

of the Indian country and then continued to the neighborhood of Tecumseh's
principal village on Tippecanoe Creek. (See Map I3.) On November 6 he
halted about a mile west of the village, encamping his force in the form of
a trapezoid around the wagons and baggage on a piece of high-wooded ground that
rose above the marshy prairies.

The Indians struck just before dawn. Harrison's situation was very similar
to that of St. Clair, and for a time his force seemed about to suffer the same
fate. Furious hand-to-hand combat followed the Indians' wild charge that carried
them into the camp itself. Although taken by surprise, the soldiers rallied
and then counterattacked. The end came when the mounted riflemen charged in
on the Indians and drove them from the field. Harrison lost 39 men killed and
missing and had 151 wounded, of whom 29 died. The engagement by no means solved
the frontier problem in the Northwest, but this problem was soon overshadowed
by the outbreak of war with England. Its most permanent legacy was a tradition
that helped Harrison win the Presidency in 1841.

The Perils of Neutrality

While the United States was launching a new government and defending the frontier,
France had undergone a revolution, which within a few years led to a general
European war. Britain joined the coalition against France in 1793 and in the
first year of the war instituted a blockade, seizing at least 300 Ameri-

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can merchant vessels. In 1794 Jay's treaty eased the mounting crisis in Anglo-American
relations. By acquiescing in the British doctrine of contraband, the United
States obtained a settlement of some long-standing questions, including evacuation
of the frontier posts, but only at the expense of domestic unity and peaceful
relations with the French. Regarding Jay's treaty as evidence of a pro-British
policy on the part of the United States, France retaliated by seizing American
vessels that were trading with the British, by sending secret agents to stir
up the Creek Indians along the southern frontier, and by meddling in American
politics in an attempt to bring about the defeat of the "pro-British"
administration. These were the new and serious problems that President Washington
bequeathed to his successor, John Adams, in 1797.

Adams inherited a military establishment with an authorized strength of about
3,300 officers and men. In 1797 Congress dropped the legion type of organization
that had served well in the frontier fighting, and the Armyreturned
to a regimental type of organization with four regiments of infantry, a Corps
of Artillerists and Engineers, and two companies of light dragoons more appropriate
to the duties of border defense. During 1796 and early 1797 there had been some
redeployment into the Southwest, so that by 1797 nine companies of infantry,
about two companies of artillery, and the entire force of dragoons were stationed
along the southwestern frontier. Up in the old Northwest there were five infantry
companies at Detroit and smaller detachments ata dozen scattered forts
elsewhere in the territory. Fort Washington was the major installation. There
were also small garrisons at the important seaports, which had been fortified
after 1794 by French technicians, émigrés of the recent revolution.
The rest of the Army was stationed along the Canadian border from the lakes
eastward and at the older posts, like West Point, Carlisle, and Fort Pitt.

The Quasi War With France

When the French continued to attack American vessels and refused to receive
the newly appointed American Minister, President Adams called Congress into
special session to consider national defense. He particularly urged that immediate
steps be taken to provide a navy. He also recommended that harbor defenses be
improved, additional cavalry be raised, the Militia Act of 1792 be revised to
provide for better organization and training, and the President be authorized
to call an emergency force, although he saw no immediate need for the last.
Congress approved the naval recommendations, but except for a modest appropriation
for harbor defenses and an act authorizing the

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President to call out 80,000 militia for a maximum term of three months, it
voted down the military recommendations.

By the spring of 1798 France's actions had thoroughly aroused the country.
President Adams again recommended an expanded defense program, which this time
fared somewhat better in Congress. Congress passed the recommended naval increases
and created a separate Navy Department. Of the three regiments the administration
recommended adding to the Regular Army, Congress authorized the additional artillery
but not the cavalry. With respect to the infantry regiment, the Secretary of
War proposed to Congress that it might act in the double capacity of marines
and infantrymen. Instead, Congress voted the U.S. Marine Corps into existence,
making it part of the Army or Navy, according to whether the marines served
on land or on shipboard. Congress also increased the number of companies in
each of the 4 Regular infantry regiments from 8 to 10; voted a sizable sum for
harbor defenses and ordnance; and authorized a Provisional Army, the emergency
force that Adams had suggested the year before.

Again Congress tried to avoid the defects of short-term enlistments by setting
the duration of the '`existing differences between the United States and the
French Republic" as the term of enlistment for the Provisional Army. Reluctant
to abandon its traditional reliance on short-term militia volunteers, Congress
turned down another Presidential request for an increase in the Regular Army,
giving him instead the authority to accept privately armed and equipped volunteer
units for short-term service. Adams never made use of this authority, but went
ahead with the plans to raise the twelve infantry regiments and one cavalry
regiment that made up the Provisional Army. He persuaded Washington to come
out of retirement to accept command as lieutenant general, and at Washington's
request appointed Alexander Hamilton senior major general. By the beginning
of 1799 the officers had been appointed and in May 1799 recruiting began. By
the time the Provisional Army was disbanded in June 1800, about 4,100 men had
been mobilized, assembled in camps, and given from six to twelve months' training.
Hamilton directed the preparation of new drill regulations to replace Steuben's,
but before the task was finished the French crisis had ended and the Provisional
Army was discharged.

The possibility that the United States might ally itself with Britain helped
persuade the French to agree to negotiations. Furthermore, the French had been
pressing Spain to return Louisiana as a step toward restoring their colonial
empire in America, and for this venture peace with the United States was necessary.
On September 30, 1800, a treaty was signed in which France agreed to recognize
American neutrality, thus formally ending the alliance of 1778, and

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to refrain from seizing American vessels that were not carrying contraband.
On the very next day, October 1, 1800, France and Spain signed a secret treaty
turning Louisiana over to France, and a few months later England and her allies
made peace with France.

Defense Under Jefferson

President Jefferson took office in 1801 committed to a policy of peace and
economy. With Europe at peace and American relations with France and England
better than they had been for ten years past, Congress proceeded to economize.
It sold the Navy that had acquitted itself so well in the quasi war with France,
retaining only the frigates and a few of the other larger ships. The Army did
not feel the effect of the economy drive until March 1802. Until then the military
establishment was much as Adams had left it after theProvisional Army
troops had been discharged, with an authorized strength of 5,438 officers and
men and an actual strength of about 4,000. In the reduction of March 1802 Congress
cut back the total strength of the Army to 3,220 men, approximately what it
had been in 1797 when Adams took office. It was more than 50 percent stronger
in artillery, but the more expensive cavalry was eliminated.

Congress also abolished the Office of the Quartermaster General when it reduced
the size of the Army and in its place instituted a system of contract agents.
It divided the country into three military departments with a military agent
in each who, with his assistants, was responsible for the movement of supplies
and troops within his department. Since the assistant agents were also appointed
by the President, the three military agents had no way to enforce accountability
on their subordinates. This system soon led to large property losses.

Since the Revolution the Army had suffered from a lack of trained technicians,
particularly in engineering science, and had depended largely upon foreign experts.
As a remedy Washington, Knox, Hamilton, and others had recommended the establishment
of a military school. During Washington's administration, Congress had added
the rank of cadet in the Corps of Artillerists and Engineers with two cadets
assigned to each company for instruction. But not until the Army reorganization
of 1802 did Congress create a separate Corps of Engineers, consisting of 10
cadets and 7 officers, and assign it to West Point to serve as the staff of
a military academy. Within a few years the U.S. Military Academy became a center
of study in military science and a source of

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trained officers. By 1812 it listed 89 graduates, 65 of them still serving
in the Army and playing an important role in operations and the construction
of fortifications.

The Army and Westward Expansion

Not long after Thomas Jefferson became President, rumors reached America that
France had acquired Louisiana from Spain. The news was upsetting. Many Americans,
including Jefferson, had believed that when Spain lost its weak hold on the
colonies the United States would automatically fall heir to them. But, with
a strong power hke trance in possession, it was useless to wait for the colonies
to fall into the lap of the United States. The presence of France in North America
also raised a new security problem. Up to this time the problem of frontier
defense had been chiefly one of pacifying the Indians, keeping the western territories
from breaking away, and preventing American settlers from molesting the Spanish.
Now, with a strong, aggressive France as backdoor neighbor, the frontier problem
became tied up with the question of security against possible foreign threats.
The transfer of Louisiana to France also marked the beginning of restraints
on American trade down the Mississippi. In the past, Spain had permitted American
settlers to send their goods down the river and to deposit them at New Orleans.
Just before transferring the colony, however, it revoked the American right
of deposit, an action which made it almost impossible for Americans to send
goods out by this route.

These considerations persuaded Jefferson in 1803 to inquire about the possibility
of purchasing New Orleans from France. When Napoleon, anticipating the renewal
of the war in Europe, offered to sell the whole of Louisiana, Jefferson quickly
accepted, suddenly doubling the size of the United States. The Army, after taking
formal possession of Louisiana on December 20, 1803, established small garrisons
at New Orleans and the other former Spanish posts on the lower Mississippi.
Jefferson later appointed Brig. Gen. James Wilkinson, who had survived the various
reorganizations of the Army to become seniorofficer, first governor
of the new territory. (Map 14)

Before the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson had persuaded Congress to support
an exploration of the unknown territory west of the Mississippi. The acquisition
of this territory now made such an exploration even more desirable. To lead
the expedition, Jefferson chose Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark,
both ofwhom had served under General Wayne in the Northwest. Leaving
St. Louis in the spring of 1804 with twenty-seven men, Lewis and Clark traveled
up the Missouri River, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and followed the Columbia
River down to the Pacific, which they reached after much

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MAP 14

hardship in November 1805. On the return journey, the party explored the region
of central Montana and returned to St. Louis in September 1806.

While Lewis and Clark were exploring beyond the Missouri, General Wilkinson
sent out Capt. Zebulon M. Pike on a similar expedition to the headwaters of
the Mississippi. In 1807 Wilkinson organized another expedition. This time he
sent twenty men under Captain Pike westward into what is now Colorado. After
exploring the region around the peak that bears his name, Pike encountered some
Spaniards who, resentful of the incursion, escorted his party to Santa Fe. From
there the Spanish took the Americans into Mexico and then back across Texas
to Natchitoches, once more in American territory. The Lewis and Clark expedition
and those of Captain Pike contributed much to the geographic and scientific
knowledge of the country, and today remain as great epics of the West.

To march across the continent might seem the manifest destiny of the Republic,
but it met with an understandable reaction from the Spanish. The

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dispute over the boundary between Louisiana and Spain's frontier provinces
and the question of the two Floridas became burning issues during Jefferson's
second administration. Tension mounted in 1806 as rumors reached Washington
of the dispatch of thousands of Spanish Regulars to reinforce the mounted Mexican
militiamen in east Texas. Jefferson reacted to the rumors by calling up the
Orleans and Mississippi Territories' militia and sending approximately 1,000
Regulars to General Wilkinson to counter the Spanish move. The rumors proved
unfounded; at no time did the Spanish outnumber the American forces in the area.
A series of cavalry skirmishes occurred along the Sabine River, but the opposing
commanders prudently avoided war by agreeing to establish a neutral zone between
the Arroyo Hondo and the Sabine River. The two armies remained along this line
throughout 1806, and the neutral zone served as a de facto boundary until
1812.

American Reaction to the Napoleonic Wars

The second round of the great conflict between England and France began in
1803, shortly after the purchase of Louisiana. It was a much more serious affair
than the earlier one. Both Britain and France adopted policies under which American
merchant shipping, whether carrying contraband or not, was subject to search
and seizure. The Napoleonic Wars and the consequent depredations on American
commerce were less a threat to national security than a blow to national pride.
Jefferson responded to the challenge by withdrawing American shipping from the
seas. Madison adopted the even riskier policy of economic coercion. Jefferson's
Embargo Act of 1807 prohibited trade with all foreign countries. It was replaced
by the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809, which prohibited trade only with England
and France. The Non-Intercourse Act was, in turn, replaced by an act in May
1810, known as Macon's Bill No. 2, which reopened trade with England and France
but provided that, if either of those countries repealed its restrictive measures
and the other failed to follow suit, the Non-Intercourse Act would be put into
effect against the nation that continued its restrictions.

The legislation failed to keep the United States from becoming embroiled in
the war and was unsuccessful in forcing England and France to respect neutral
trade. Neither Jefferson nor Madison recognized that under the new scheme of
economic warfare being waged by both England and France the American measures
were in effect provocative acts, likely to bring the United States into the
war on one side or the other. The Embargo Act and, to a lesser extent, the Non-Intercourse
Act of 1809 did cripple American trade, something

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that neither Britain nor France had succeeded in doing. As a result, the American
people, already divided by sectional jealousies and by the Frenchcrisisduring Adams' administration, were so thoroughly disunited that the government
could not count on the loyalty and support of a sizable part of the population.

International tension was so great in the months after the embargo went into
effect that Congress, while rejecting Jefferson's proposal for recruiting a
24,000-man volunteer force, authorized the recruitment of 6,000 men as a temporary
addition to the Army. In the last month of his administration President Jefferson
sent more than 2,000 of these men to General Wilkinson to defend "New Orleans
and its dependencies" against an expected English invasion. The invasion
never materialized, but poor leadership and bureaucratic mismanagement bordering
on the criminal combined with the tropical heat to accomplish what no British
invasion could have done. Over 1,000 men, half of Wilkinson's army, died in
Louisiana.

By January 1810 relations with Britain had so deteriorated that President Madison
recommended the recruitment of a volunteer force of 20,000. Congress, apparently
satisfied with the existing militia system, again refused to vote a volunteer
force; not until January 1812 did it increase the Army's strength when it added
thirteen additional regiments, totaling about 25,700 men, and authorized the
President to call 50,000 militiamen into service.

The additional men would soon be needed. On June 18, 1812, Congress declared
war against England. At the same time a Senate proposal to declare waragainst
France failed by only two votes.